… Only yesterday, Freddie said it lost $8 billion in the first quarter, requested another $10.6 billion from Uncle Sam, and warned that it would need more in the future. This comes on top of the $126.9 billion that Fan and Fred had already lost through the end of 2009. The duo are by far the biggest losers of the entire financial panic—bigger than AIG, Citigroup and the rest.

From the 2008 meltdown through 2020, the toxic twins will cost taxpayers close to $380 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s cautious estimate. The Obama Administration won’t even put the companies on budget for fear of the deficit impact, but it realizes the problem because last Christmas Eve it raised the $400 billion cap on their potential taxpayer losses to . . . infinity.

Moreover, these taxpayer losses understate the financial destruction wrought by Fan and Fred. By concealing how much they were gambling on risky subprime and Alt-A mortgages, the companies sent bogus signals on the size of these markets and distorted decision-making throughout the system.

The last excerpted sentence can’t be emphasized enough, especially since establishment media reports seemingly won’t touch it. As I’ve noted several times (here, here, and here), Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are 15-year scams perpetrated on the financial markets by Democratic cronies who ruined the housing and mortgage-lending markets and ultimately set the stage for the ignition of the POR Economy Recession by Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, and Harry Reid in the summer of 2008.

Montgomery County has not billed Kettering for sewer costs at its popular Water Raves outdoor water park since the facility opened in 1990.

Kettering has agreed to pay the county nearly $200,000, but that’s a fraction of the estimated $500,000 cost because state law allows the county to collect only for the past six years since no bills were issued.

While checking accounts, county officials discovered Water Raves had been billed for water service, but not sewer, according to Greg Merrill, director of the county’s environmental services.

After months of talks, Kettering recently agreed to a sewer debt of $213,265 for the water park. An audit of other Kettering accounts showed $13,757 in credits to the city, making the final bill $199,508.

Doesn’t Montgomery County’s Democratic Auditor Karl Keith, who has been in office since 2001, deserve a little heat for this?

Update: A commenter more accurately points the finger at Montgomery County’s Democratic commissioners, which raises a reminder — I “forgot” (ha-ha) that county auditors have narrow duties that would not ordinarily include, uh, auditing things like sewer assessments. It’s a good thing Republicans have a real auditor and CPA on the ballot in Nov- … … oops.

… the official residence of Ohio’s governor in recent years “functioned as a ‘mule station’ for the conveyance of tobacco and other contraband into a state prison,” according to an investigation released last week by Inspector General Thomas P. Charles.

Strickland’s reaction has been to give the Inspector General the Ken Starr treatment and to defend a Public Safety Director who pretty clearly lied under oath. That too, is so predictable.

It’s not exactly a secret that I’m not a fan of T-Shirt Ted, but that doesn’t mean I want something bad to happen to him or Frances. Strickland seems all too willing to risk that:

The inmate work program, used by governors going back to Michael DiSalle, (1959-1963), “veered off course” after Strickland took office in 2007, the inspector general found. Inmate oversight was “cavalier,” largely because of “a failure to integrate the prison security requirements.”

Why would you not do that?

Hey Ted, if you want to do dangerous things after you leave office, hopefully in January 2011, that’s fine. But while you’re Ohio’s chief executive, you’re not allowed to be cavalier about your safety. You owe it to your state’s residents to do everything reasonable to keep yourself safe and avoid exposing yourself to unnecessary risks. The IG says you’re not doing that. The IG is clearly correct.

Meanwhile, the gubernatorial incompetence machine marches on:

Although she was appointed Sept. 18, Strickland’s office mistakenly failed to submit her appointment and four others to the Senate for approval. Collins-Taylor’s confirmation hearing is expected later this month.

Why John Kasich isn’t making competence an issue in the gubernatorial campaign is a true mystery.

… Although Ohio Democrats enjoy a registration advantage of more than 1 million voters over Republicans …

This is true even though the state’s residents are predominantly center-right in political outlook. 15-20 years of pathetic ORPINO (Ohio Republican Party In Name Only) leadership, awful candidates, and poor governance have brought us to this point.

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Andy McCarthy’s final paragraph in a read-the-whole-thingNational Review column about the handling of the Time Square wannabe bomber:

Needlessly making the complaint public may harm the ongoing investigation, but it is savvy public relations. It gives the Justice Department and the administration a script with which to portray themselves as super-competent and the civilian justice system as so effective that Bush-era relics like military detention are unnecessary. I hope there’s a better explanation than that. If there’s not, then the administration has prioritized scoring political points over effective investigation and intelligence gathering.

This administration’s pattern of behavior leads me to believe that there isn’t a better explanation than that.

In the complaint, CEI urges the FTC to investigate the GM ad campaign entitled “GM Repaid Government Loan Ahead of Schedule.” The ad features GM’s Chairman and CEO, Ed Whitacre, who declares that “we have repaid our government loan in full, with interest, five years ahead of the original schedule.”

That claim, CEI explains in the complaint, “gives the false impression that GM has used its own funds to pay back all the bailout money that it received from the federal government. In fact, GM has only repaid a fraction of those funds—barely ten percent. Moreover, GM apparently repaid its loan by using other federal funds.”

To add insult to injury, GM’s misleading ad could unfairly dupe consumers into a false, renewed confidence in the company, the complaint explains.

The last excerpted sentence makes a good point: GM seems to be a desperate company. GM’s sales in April were up 7% from a dismal, cash-hemorrhaging April 2009. Ford, Toyota, Chrysler, Honda, and Nissan were up 26%, 24%, 25%, 13%, and 35%, respectively.

One observer notes that Chrysler’s suddenly good month “strongly suggests a high level of (low-profit) fleet sales for the month.”

5 Comments

RE:Kettering’s water bill: Do county auditor’s in Ohio really audit? What I find is they are more involved with property valuations than financial auditing.

Needless to say, whoever has been running Mont. Co. Water Services (I liked the old name better: Mont. Co. Sanitary Engineering) really needs to answer the question. Which would be the merry clan of Deb Feldman, Dan Foley, Debbie Lieberman and Judy Dodge. In the case of the three commissioners, it is time to play name that party!

The libs are in REACTIVE mode. Funny how someone who claims they are progressive are reactionaries in drag. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, but you wouldn’t know it by how the libs behave.

It’s really ironic when you consider one of the main selling points of ObamaCare was preventative medicine for the uninsured in order to lower the overall cost of medical care.

Nothing says reactionary like refusing to block terrorists from entering the country and forcing LEOs and citizens to make up for the incompetence of the Obama Admin. The Times Square attempt was basically begged for by this kind of ineptitude. We need to stop assigning political motives to why Obama fails to do his JOB, because to do so rationalizes why can continue, we need to call it for what it is: INCOMPETENCE.

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